There is this person in his 80's who plans to live the remainder of his life in the United States with his son. His concern now is on how to dispose of his properties located in the Philippines. Naturally, his lawyer advised him to execute a will in favor of his heirs and to specify therein how his belongings will be partitioned. He has only two children, one of which he intends to disinherit in the will, making the son living abroad the sole heir.
However, the problem now is that most of his personal properties are paintings and antqiues which he does not want to have to send overseas. The son is also encouraging his dad to sell those properties instead, a proposal to which the testator agreed. What he did now is to ask a lawyer to help him sell the properties.
I had a conversation with the lawyer. The lawyer, already in his 60's, asked me if I can help him sell the paintings and antiques through an online auction. I was assuming that he was refering to a bidding system similar to Amazon. I told him that yes, it can be done but I would advise against. I reasoned out that those types of merchandise can be sold at a higher price if they were offered to a specific niche, as compared to offering them to the general public. The idea is to focus marketing efforts on the target market to maximize profit, which in this case are art enthusiasts with deep pockets.
Reputable auction houses would still be the more appropriate sales channel as opposed to online bidding in my opinion. This is because the target market would be hesitant to place a high bid on an item which they have not yet personally seen. The more zeros the price tag has, the more the buyers would want the transaction to be personal. Naturally, if a person would be spending much for a product, he would want to be able to examine and inspect it to dispell doubts on its authenticity before making the purchase.
Also, I have this impression that those who are willing and able to buy the works of art are actually members of a closely-knit community. Thus, attending an art gallery and auction for them could also be considered as a social event.
The lawyer's concern, on the other hand, is that there may be buyers overseas who may be interested in the items. The contention is valid. My reply to that was online bidding is not the only way to reach foreign buyers. It could be that the auction house already has a mailing list of foreign contacts and it would only be a matter of sending them an e-mail informing them of the auction schedules and the catalog of the items to be sold.
In the end, I managed to dissuade the lawyer from selling the paintings and antiques via Amazon and E-bay. Although it is true that those properties can be sold faster and with less effort through online transactions, that would not necessarily translate to optimized profitability. Sure, you wouldn't have to go to through the laborious task of transporting the properties to the auction house and going through the deals and details for the auction but it is a trade-off. In this particular case, given the target market and the nature of the merchandise, I believe that more will be lost if online bidding is resorted to instead of an auction catering to a specific group.
While the internet has been instrumental to the growth and success of different businesses, it is still important to note that it merely provides for an alternative venue for businesses to thrive and is not necessarily the best option in doing transactions.
- Evangelista, Emmanuel Benedict C. (blog entry no. 10)
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